


when our eyes meet

by ayeayecaptain



Category: Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Humor, I still hardcore ship this, M/M, Romance, Samuel is literally a main character already look at his number of appearances, also Minki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 11:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12319782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayeayecaptain/pseuds/ayeayecaptain
Summary: Samuel's a little piece of shit and to be honest, Daehwi's never going to be prepared to confess to a certain senior.





	when our eyes meet

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao literally took me two months to write because the river of creativeness in my mind is as dry as my face in winter. Just finished this yesterday and posting this now just in time for W,HERE (is anyone here excited for Where You At release). Idk maybe I'll release a 2hyun sometime (or maybe some BaekMin but idk I don't love it as much as I love DongHwi). My baby dorks are so cute yo.
> 
> (also some THE BOYZ promotion they cute I swear)

“Dude. Why don’t you just talk to him about it already?” Samuel tells him, poking at his own lunch and grimacing at the bloody bone of chicken that’s revealed to him. Daehwi’s head snaps so quickly towards the direction of his best friend that it felt like it just cracked.

“I’ll handle it in my own time, Samuel,” Daehwi dismisses, getting back to biting a piece of his sandwich. Samuel wrinkles his nose.

“Like, what – never?” Samuel retorts. He’s wrong. Daehwi will deal with it soon – probably after a couple of hundred years of consideration, yeah, he’ll deal with it. That’s totally a _short_ period of time. It will probably even pass by without Daehwi knowing it.

“You want some?” he offers, thrusting his second sandwich right in front of his best friend and relishing the look of disgust that spreads over Samuel’s face.

Samuel slowly pushes the _wheat bread and cheese_ sandwich away. “Dude. You know I fucking hate that. Just – no.”

“Language.”

Rolling his eyes, Samuel waves his hands dismissively. “Anyway. Why can’t you at least flirt with him? You flirt with everyone, and it’s not like Baekho _hyung_ ’s that scary. Also – are you dieting again?”

“First of all, you’re right, he isn’t scary, but I’m homosexual and what I’m scared about is me freaking him out by _flirting_ with him and saying something creepy or weird or anything. That’s why I won’t flirt with him – also, don’t phrase it that way, please. I don’t flirt with everyone. You make it sound so bad. And yes, I am dieting.” Daehwi’s eyes wander back again to the table where Dongho and his friends are laughing and talking and eating.

 _That_ table is essentially the cool _hyung_ s table. It’s also the table that Minki drags him to sometimes, because Minki is too observant for his own good and basically, Daehwi immediately got found out the first week he started to hang out with the “cool _hyung_ s” of their school.

Those visits to _that_ table have led to him becoming friends with Dongho, but that’s the problem, because, now, Daehwi doesn’t know how to get out of the friendzone. He considers flirting with Dongho pretty daunting, and to be honest, he thinks it’s rude if he’s going to flirt with the older after that time Dongho told him he trusts him.

Dongho looks away from his friends and catches his gaze. Daehwi almost dies when he smiles at him.

 “Since you’re hopelessly pining for him, and I’ve tried to talk to you about flirting with him, can I get Somi’s number now?” Samuel asks him, poking at his shoulder lightly.

It’s not Daehwi who answers this time, but Woojin, who’s switched from staring into empty space (probably thinking about Hyungseop) to joining their conversation. “You’re still attempting that?”

Samuel pauses from putting a french fry inside his mouth. “Yes.” He continues when Woojin gives him a look. “Come on, she’s hot!”

Maybe Daehwi should consider heterosexuality. Hm, maybe he should try it with Somi. Wait – no. That’s kind of gross. He doesn’t really want to get together with his _better_ best friend. Besides, he’s already quite literally waved his rainbow cape of gay gayness in front of the whole school (when he ran for president), so he can’t back out of homosexuality _now_.

“It would be weird if your friends start hooking up with each other. Like, look at Youngmin _hyung_ and Donghyun _hyung_ ,” Woojin tells them, gesturing to the couple beside him. Okay – Daehwi can’t help grimacing at the sight.

He’s not much for PDA, even just people being too close to each other, so basically Daehwi feels freaked out even if it’s just Youngmin and Donghyun sitting together attached from their shoulders to their thighs.

“What was that? I heard my name.” Donghyun looks up from his lunch, confused.

“Nothing, Donghyun _hyung_. We were just talking about Daehwi’s hopeless love life,” Samuel replies, smug as he grins at Daehwi.

“I thought you were trying to help me out, Samuel. I didn’t know you’d betray me! _Hopeless_!” Daehwi exclaims exaggeratedly and earns a thumbs up from Seongwoo, who’s eating at the table next to theirs and also happens to be that _hyung_ who is the king of exaggeration. Daehwi briefly wonders why Seongwoo’s not in the drama club.

The rest of the laughs.

“Never mind about my betrayal, Baekho _hyung_ ’s walking towards our table. Dude.”

He gets whiplash when he looks up. And then his eyes meet with Dongho. No, it was nothing magical like the way it happens in movies, but Daehwi’s heart does crack his ribcage. That’s what it felt like, at least.

There’s some sort of thing to it, watching Dongho walk to their table. There’s nothing extra special, really, it’s just Dongho walking in the usual way he does, but, well, Dongho – Dongho just looks too fine. Or it could just be Daehwi in his glorious gayness.

“Hello, _hyung_.” Daehwi’s greeting is as awkward as it can get and sprinkles his mind with ideas of just killing himself later. It gets even more awkward when Samuel adds a cringy ‘whazzup’ (yes, that’s what he said) into the non-existent conversation.

“Hi... ”

Dongho stands there for a few seconds, silent, not really saying anything. By now, all of them – even Youngmin and Donghyun, who are usually unmindful of _every single thing_ except for each other – are staring up at the senior, expectant for _something_.

Finally, Dongho does say something. “Do you want to go for some tteokbokki later, after classes?”

It takes a few seconds of blinking for Daehwi to fully process Dongho’s words. In fact, everyone in their table blinks up at the senior – even Youngmin and Donghyun (and those two don’t even pay attention to _anything_ when they’re together) – quite stupidly for the next five seconds.

“I... uh, I...” Daehwi starts, licking his lower lip in nervousness. “I... I’m studying later at the library and, well, we have a quiz tomorrow, so I don’t think I can go with you, _hyung_. I can go with you tomorrow, if you want, though.”

Dongho burns him with the intensity of his stare. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

 

“You were serious about studying?” Samuel asks as he follows Daehwi through the halls. Woojin drags along behind them, fingers quickly moving over his phone, probably messaging Hyungseop again or something.

Daehwi nods, determined. His steps are quick as they approach the school library.

“But we don’t have any quizzes tomorrow.”

He closes his eyes for a moment before stopping abruptly and looking Samuel in the eye. “Remember ‘every day is quiz day, math torture all the way’? And the fact that the quarter exams are starting next week? Unlike you, my dear friend, I am concerned about my grades and my academic ranking.”

His best friend scoffs. “You’re just trying to find a way to not be alone with him.”

“Samuel’s right, Daehwi,” Woojin agrees, finally looking up from his phone and tucking it inside his pocket to walk beside them.

“I’m not. Besides, I told him that I’d be available tomorrow, so I really am not avoiding it,” Daehwi reasons out to his friends. Samuel only rolls his eyes at him.

“Sure. Tell me that tomorrow when you’re in the library and _studying_.” Samuel earns a swat on the shoulder. Daehwi switches to spying on Woojin and his phone screen. Whatever. He’s sure he can find something to change the topic.

“Oh, Hyungseop _hyung_ just asked out Woojin _hyung_ ,” Daehwi tells Samuel, who moves to walk beside Woojin and also peek at the messages.

“Accept _it_ ,” Samuel demands from Woojin and proceeds to invade the older’s space as he peers down at the bright screen of Woojin’s phone. Woojin frowns before exiting from the message inbox to the home screen and halting his steps. He looks at the both of them.

“But I don’t like him like that, Samuel.” Samuel snorts.

“Did you hear that, Daehwi? He said he doesn’t like Hyungseop _hyung_ that way! Oh my God!” There goes Samuel with his exaggerated self again.

Daehwi blinks back at his best friend. “Hm-hm. He’s still in-denial. Keeps telling me he just sees Hyungseop _hyung_ as a friend.” He snorts as he speaks again to Woojin. “A friend. As if that’s what you see him as. The first time I saw you with _hyung_ , you were _happily_ squeezed between him and the wall. Oh, and you so look at him like– ”

“Can we just open the door already?”

They get inside the library. It’s silent, with most tables occupied by students that have the mind to not cram their papers on the day before the quarterly exams. Daehwi likes to consider himself one of those students.

He positions himself between Samuel and Woojin, sighing contentedly as he looks down at his notes on Physics. Now, there’s no chance Dongho could sit next to him, and so, if ever his crush does walk inside the library, awkward and spine-tingling situations would be less likely to happen.

“I didn’t understand anything on the Physics lecture. Daehwi, teach me,” Samuel begs, also staring at his notes. Daehwi sighs.

“You won’t understand anything if you don’t listen, Samuel. You really have to stop stalking Somi on social media.” He flips a page.

Samuel rolls his eyes. “It’s not stalking, okay? I’m just trying to learn things about her without actually sending her a DM.”

“That’s the same thing as stalking her, you creep. Just send her something, like, oh, tell her I want my sweater back. It’s been with her for months.” He hands Samuel his notebook, pointing at the notes there. “Everything is explained there, just read it.”

Daehwi switches to paying attention to Woojin, whose fingers are hovering over his phone screen. Woojin has that glassy look on his eyes as he stares down at the messages that are most possibly Hyungseop’s – no – definitely Hyungseop’s.

“Don’t you like him like that?” Daehwi asks, leaning against the chair as he relaxes. Yeah, he’s not studying. He’ll study – after Samuel gives him back his notebook, which will probably be around the same time the library closes. Not to undermine his friend, but that actually happened already. “I mean, sure, you’re at your most in-denial state right now, but I’m pretty sure you’re aware you like him, you’re just all about refusing to accept it.”

“I’ve never liked another guy, okay? All the people I’ve ever liked are girls. It’s normal for me to like a girl. But liking a guy...”

Daehwi sighs. “ _Hyung_ , you like him because it’s him, right? If it’s anyone else, you won’t be like this, right?”

Woojin looks at him for a long time. “I guess so.”

Satisfied, he nods his head approvingly. “Then, if you like him, you don’t have to worry about what other people will say. And anyway, I’m openly gay and people don’t say a lot of bad things about me.”

“That’s because you’re the golden boy. I’m just your friend.”

Daehwi snorts. “You’re also famous here.”

Their conversation gets cut short by the sudden appearance of Dongho. Wait – not just Dongho, but also the “cool _hyung_ s”. Wait, there’s more. Daehwi almost _whimpers_ – like he’s some sort of hungry dog that’s seen food (that’s actually pretty gross now that Daehwi’s imagining it) – as he stares at the silver-rimmed glasses the older is wearing. He has never seen Dongho like that. And yes, he admits it, he loves the look so _so_ much. Okay – _fuck_.

Daehwi grabs his notebook from Samuel’s hands, ignoring the yelp he receives next. He needs to hide. Okay, maybe he’s assuming too much that Dongho will see him and actually go to their table, but whatever. Better safe than sorry.

His “hiding” doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t. Samuel and Woojin are with him; anyone would know who’s between them.

“Mind if we sit here?” Minki asks them, pulling a chair from the table and sitting on it before they could even answer. Dongho – _Dongho_ sits right in front of Daehwi with his – _his_ adorable glasses-wearing self, making him lift his head up fully from the cover of his notebook. The older smiles at him before flipping through a book.

Okay, good. He’s not talking to Daehwi. No weird stuff bound to happen.

“Teach _me_ ,” Samuel nags him again, tugging at his arm and flashing a pair of puppy eyes at Daehwi – it doesn’t work. At all. He only agrees to help Samuel study because he’s a good person who cares about the well-being of his best friend. He’s totally not trying to find an excuse to not talk to Dongho. He really isn’t.

 

“You know, Dongho was the one who wanted to come here. He was all like – “ Minki starts as he looks up from the book he’s reading.

“Minki, stop.” Dongho’s eyes are flashing all kinds of warning signals at his friend, which he hopes Daehwi doesn’t realize the meaning of. He goes back to frowning at Minki and that _evil_ grin plastered on his face.

“What? I was just telling them how you needed help for Chemistry.” And there goes Minki again. Widening his eyes like he’s _innocent_. Ha.

“Guys, we’re supposed to be studying,” Jonghyun reminds them, then goes back to doing his homework with Minhyun. Dongho still wonders exactly why they’re still only flirting with each other.

Well, at least four people on their table are being responsible. Daehwi’s teaching Samuel, Samuel seems to be learning, Jonghyun and Minhyun are doing their homework, and then there’s the three of them – Woojin, Minki, and Dongho – on the other side.

Dongho just wants to spend his time at somewhere that is _not_ the library studying, studying, and _studying_. Peacefully. Without a certain junior messing with the time he had supposedly reserved for learning shit that will probably never help him in “real life”. But no, Minki had to drag him to the library because, apparently, he needs to work on his love life.

He’s fine without his love life. His love life’s not even supposed to be important right now, because he’s supposed to be focusing on getting into one of those highly-acclaimed music schools.

But no, now he has to deal with stupid feelings and hints that Minki always throws his way about how Daehwi might also have feelings for him. Which is ridiculous, by the way, because as he remembers it, Daehwi confessed to him about being shit-scared of him before they became friends. So no.

And of course, just as Dongho has decided that maybe studying in the library isn’t so bad and that he should actually read the book he randomly picked from one of the bookshelves, Minki pokes his arm.

With an exasperated sigh, he looks at his friend. “What is it?”

“I dragged you here for a reason, you know,” Minki drawls, inspecting his fingernails as if he’s expecting any dirt there. There’s none, obviously, but Dongho decides it’s not really worth commenting about.

“Studying.” He’s going to play innocent. Maybe Minki will just leave him alone if he thinks Dongho didn’t realize what his objectives were. It worked before.

It doesn’t work now. “We’re piecing together your messy love life.”

Dongho groans as he whispers – no, hisses at his friend. “My love life can be a total disaster and I still won’t care. I don’t need to sort it out. I probably don’t even _need_ my love life.”

“Well,” Minki says, raising an eyebrow, “I think the opposite. You’ve seriously been crushing on him since like– “

Dongho shoots his friend a glance, because Minki is _so_ not whispering and keeping everything a nice, _little_ secret. Of course, things come the way you didn’t expect them to come when they’re coming from Minki.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat as Minki’s breath puffs against his ear and as his friend drawls out words, “Daehwi first stepped inside this school. Happy?”

Dongho can _feel_ the smugness on Minki’s face. “Please don’t mention his name.”

Minki smirks. “Since you asked so nicely, **_hyung_**. _Anyway_ , you should try to do something about your feelings, because I swear, sometimes, you look at him like some sort of rapist – which is gross. I don’t know, maybe _confessing_ to him would make you more sane or something, but whatever, just do your thing.”

“You used to be so innocent,” he states, making his tone seem disappointed and trying to change the subject.

Apparently, from Minki’s unimpressed face, it didn’t work. Minki just gives him one of those “you tried” stares and nods. “Just – do something, okay?”

And with that, his friend switches to actually reading the notes in Chemistry he bought with him. Dongho stares back down at the open book in front of him. He groans as he flops down against the pages.

Maybe he can snooze off in the library without getting caught. For these past few days, between his academics and Daehwi, sleep was practically near non-existent. He needs some sleep, sleep, sleep, _sleep_. What a nice idea.

He’s asleep in seconds.

 

“ _Hyung_ ’s sleeping,” Samuel whispers, interrupting Daehwi in the middle of his tutoring session. Daehwi shushes his best friend.

“Focus on the subject, Samuel. Woojin _hyung_ doesn’t break rules.” He goes back to pointing at variables with his pencil. Honestly. Here he is, trying to teach Samuel about Physics, and his best friend still wants to distract him with a _lie_ about Woojin sleeping in the library.

“I mean Baekho _hyung_ , Daehwi. He’s _sleeping_ in the library.” Daehwi frowns at Samuel. That’s silly. Dongho doesn’t break rules. Bending rules, sure, but not breaking. But when he actually lifts his head up from the notebook, he sees Dongho sleeping like some sort of cat with glasses on.

Daehwi lets a _small_ breathy sigh escape his lips, or at least, he thought it was small. Nope. The whole table hears it, except for Dongho (of course, because he’s sleeping). Both Jonghyun and Minhyun avert their attention from their study session, and Minki raises an eyebrow from behind his Chemistry notes.

“Daehwi... did you just _sigh_ pervertedly?” Minki asks, slowly lowering his notes.

Daehwi flushes, yet still has enough nerves to say anything. “You’re stretching everything. How can that have been perverted?”

Minki repeats Daehwi’s sigh, only in a twisted way that makes the sound sound indecent. He doesn’t know how the older can even make it come out like that but to be completely honest, he doesn’t want to know either.

“Did you hear my exact replica of your moan? It’s per– “

“I thought it was supposed to be a sigh,” Samuel interrupts as he enters the banter. A few blinks come from Minki before the senior opens his mouth again.

“A _sigh_. ‘Did you hear my exact replica of your sigh?’ That doesn’t make you think of perverted. Nope. I’m going with ‘moan’. It– “

Minhyun butts in. “Minki, I don’t think it was perverted.”

“Why does everyone keep on butting in on my speech? It’s not– “

“It’s not a speech, Minki. It’s just you being overly dramatic,” Jonghyun says, earning a frustrated sigh from Minki.

“I give up on this. I’m feeling oppressed right now, I can’t,” Minki dramatically declares before sulking behind his notes. Of course, it’s all pretend. Minki’s too sassy to sulk over shit like that anyway. They all smile.

Jonghyun clears his throat. “So... Daehwi... you like Dongho?”

Daehwi can’t really speak, the burning feeling on his cheeks distracting him from actually answering. He kind of wants to deny it, because why not, right? Obviously, Jonghyun and Minhyun wouldn’t be as bad as Minki if he told them but then, telling people about his crush on Dongho is probably just going to be mentally and emotionally taxing.

Or maybe Daehwi really just doesn’t need more people knowing. See, it’s one thing for everyone to know he’s gay and it’s another thing for people to know who exactly he’s pining for at the moment. Especially when he has Jinyoung as a friend (though these days, Jinyoung’s too busy with dating Jihoon to actually bother Daehwi).

“I like him. I guess.” Daehwi awkwardly scratches his head, avoiding everyone else’s eyes.

Minhyun asks, “You guess?”

Daehwi coughs. “I like him a lot.”

At that, Minki slams his notebook against the table, and exclaims, “He’s finally out!” The entire library shushes him.

 

Dongho wakes up to Minki shouting. _Shouting_ in the library. The _library_. How many minutes has it been? Fifteen minutes. Seven minutes. He only got to sleep for seven minutes. _Help_.

He only notices the rest of the table staring intensely at him when he actually got to putting on his glasses after wiping his eyes. Oddly, too, Daehwi looks like he’s been scared enough to be scarred for life, and Jonghyun’s switching from staring at him and glaring at Minki.

“What happened?” Dongho asks, yawning a little as he looks around. He’s trying hard to avoid thinking that whatever Minki shouted out to the library was something bad about him. That would suck. But then, that might also explain Daehwi’s facial expression.

“Minki overreacted to someone’s post on Instagram,” is Jonghyun’s quick reply. Dongho can pretend he was convinced by that obvious lie. Obviously, his mouth’s an entirely separate entity from him.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re all staring at me.”

Everyone else at the table draws one synchronized intake of breath. Freaky.

“Is somebody going to tell him?” Minhyun asks everyone at the table. Minki raises a hand eagerly, then pouts when Jonghyun gently lowers his arm to the table. _No_ , Jonghyun mouths to Minki, shaking his head.

“I think Daehwi should tell _hyung_ ,” Samuel suggests, followed by a yelp and a glare directed at Daehwi. “Ow! _Fuck_ – “

“Language, Samuel,” Woojin reminds Samuel, not even looking up from the phone he has gone back to focusing on. Dongho’s face meets the book’s pages again.

“Who’s going to tell me whatever you were talking about?”

Samuel recovers from what Dongho presumes was pain (probably inflicted by Daehwi, judging from his glares) and slams his hands against the wooden surface of the table (the librarian glares at them). “I nominate Daehwi!”

“ _Jesus, Samuel. Don’t shout in the library!_ ” Daehwi scolds his friend in that alien language called English, dragging down Samuel back on his seat. Dongho feels himself choke. Maybe he does have something for Daehwi speaking in English. It’s not his fault.

“No other nominations? Okay! Daehwi it is!” Despite Daehwi scolding Samuel, the latter continues to speak like he’s in the hallway. Jonghyun’s already going to the librarian to apologize.

“ _Samuel, you – is ruining me your only goal in life?_ ”

Dongho hums a little as he settles his chin against his forearm, looking up at the two best friends and pretending he isn’t getting tingles over Daehwi speaking English. Gah, he sounds like a pervert.

“ _Oh, Daehwi, you do know this is for your own good, right? After all, you’re like a brother to me_.” Dongho observes as Daehwi rolls his eyes playfully, thinking that with that little smirk on the younger’s lips, Daehwi might just be the death of him.

“No, Samuel. Jisung _eomma_ is my mother, and you’re totally the devil’s spawn,” Daehwi switches back to Korean, much to Dongho’s disappointment (he was just enjoying everything, _damn it_ ). Oh well. He enjoyed it while it lasted.

“So Daehwi’s going to tell me? What is it that the other people at this table can’t tell me, hm?” Dongho rests an elbow on the table and watches Daehwi flinch and slowly turn his head to him. Cute.

“Here’s the thing, _hyung_. I don’t think it’s supposed to be talked about here. In the library,” Daehwi starts, licking his lips after every couple of words in nervousness. Dongho feels ready to pinch the younger’s cheeks. Is he going to be classified as a pervert if he follows the darting motion of Daehwi’s tongue? Because he feels like a big pervert right now for doing exactly that.

“Is it something perverted?” Dongho teases, grinning at Daehwi. Nothing can possibly prepare him for the quick flush that spreads across the latter’s cheeks. Okay, maybe something could have prepared him but it definitely wasn’t in his vicinity.

“It’s a perverted desire!” Samuel answers for his best friend (Daehwi’s trying to say something but all he gets to do is open his mouth and gape like a fish). People from other tables give them scandalized looks, though Samuel doesn’t seem to even care about any of that.

“Well, we can talk about it outside, right?”

Daehwi nods.

 

Dongho only realizes how completely inappropriate the hallway is for whatever Daehwi’s going to tell him when they get there. There’s a group of girls giggling near the lockers, the stairwell is occupied by a couple – Daniel and Seongwoo, seriously, they had to do their PDA there, a few rowdy guys are trying to play football in the hallway (wtf there’s the field outside for a reason), and basically probably 1/8 of the school’s population is in that particular hallway.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” he tells Daehwi. Dongho grabs the younger’s hand and he feels a little sorry for suddenly dragging Daehwi around but really, all he can think about is how warm Daehwi’s hand feels against his.

A few minutes go by with Dongho leading Daehwi around like that but when they stop, they’re right in front of the snack place across their high school called Flower Snack. Dongho turns to Daehwi. “Let’s eat that tteokbokki now?”

“Okay, _hyung_ ,” Daehwi answers. Dongho blinks. He feels so _bothered_ by that _hyung_. _Hyung_. _Hyung_. It’s so awkward to his ears, like ~~this entire filler of a paragraph~~ lyrics that don’t match with the rhythm and background of a song.

“Daehwi, can you drop the _hyung_?”

It’s Daehwi’s turn to blink at Dongho. “Okay. Why, though?”

“Why not?”

They get greeted by a group of handsome guys as soon as they enter the place. Maybe this also isn’t the best place for Daehwi to tell him shit but oh well, the tteokbokki’s good, as Seonho recommended it to him. He spots Haknyeon (that kid who almost made Dongho cry for a really bad reason when Dongho tutored him on music) serving some other customers. The kid’s underage and yet, somehow, he’s got a part-time job already.

“May I take your order?” A pink-haired kid (name’s Eric) asks, smiling at the both of them as he holds a pad of paper in his hand and a pen on the other. Why is everyone in this place good-looking?

“Tteokbokki...?”

Turns out there are two types of tteokbokki at this place. Oh well. They quickly order, one of each type of tteokbokki and two Cloud Ades (they’re both curious about this drink).

“Tell me now?”

Daehwi flinches again, eyes widening and breath catching. Dongho might have the teeniest clue about this thing Daehwi’s going to tell him but he doesn’t really want to get his hopes up so he’ll just wait for it.

“You know I’m gay, right?” Daehwi asks him meekly and refuses to meet his eyes.Dongho nods.

“You won’t hate me for this, right?” Daehwi asks again, this time, meeting his stare and oh, he looks so fragile and it makes Dongho want to protect him and keep him away from anything that might hurt him.

“I can’t hate you, Daehwi. I just can’t.” Dongho gathers all the courage he can possibly have inside him and reaches to hold Daehwi’s hands, watching carefully and trying to see if he’s allowed to do this. Daehwi doesn’t pull away.

“You’re making this all hard for me...” It’s a whisper that Dongho barely hears, but he catches it. This is all making him hope for more and, to be honest, all he wants is for him not to get a broken heart after this. But just in case, he prepares himself. Just in case.

It takes a few seconds before Daehwi inhales deeply then gives Dongho a gaze that the older will forever hold in his mind. It’s that look that’s pure but seduces anyone who receives it. “I like you. I like you a lot more than just as a friend or as a _hyung_. I... I really like you but please just reject me already.”

Cute is what Dongho thinks as Daehwi looks down at the table and pouts. Dongho’s hand is resting on top of Daehwi’s, and he wonders how exactly Daehwi conjured this thought in his mind that Dongho’s going to reject him. How on earth can Dongho reject this cute and amazing guy? His lips quirk up into a smile.

“Who says I’ll reject you?”

Daehwi’s lips gape open at him, the younger obviously surprised and stunned. Dongho’s smile widens. The pink-haired kid comes after some more minutes and gives them the food they ordered, but everything else is like background noise or the blurry, unfocused part of a picture.

They eat their food, drink their drinks (the cotton candy from the Cloud Ade’s nice), but through it all, they lock eyes with each other. Daehwi fits their fingers together and squeezes. Everything’s great.

Oh, except for Samuel sitting on the table next to theirs.

“Guys, for how long are you going to sit there? My butt hurts from sitting for so long, and my diet’s non-existent by now. Have mercy on me!”

**Author's Note:**

> Update: My baby NU'EST W just won omg their first win I look so ugly rn I'm crying too much agh


End file.
